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“I was struggling with my daughter (16 at the time) and our constant fighting. You said something to me that changed my life! You were speaking about your own situation and you said to me “my child could not handle my emotions”. This was a HUGE “lightbulb moment” for me and it forever changed the way I dealt with my emotions when I was around my daughter!

I am happy to say that things have never been better between my soon to be 18 year old daughter and myself! I honestly never thought we would…

Mom M

Your words are my lifeline. I sit down to your posts and as I read I can feel my acceptance of myself and my needs grow. Your words validate my feelings about my life, motherhood, relationships and it is something I hold onto. And during the times when I feel like I am not able to be a mother or a wife or a sister or a friend or whatever someone needs me to be, I go back to your words and find some peace…I send your posts to my husband when I need him to understand that I love him but I need …

D.R.

Brenda has truly opened up a space for introverted types on the ‘net, and her self-revelations are always inspiring. Her voice is one I always look forward to. She is one of the writers that actually played a part in my return to writing. — S.E. of Sunflower Solace Farms

S.E. of Sunflower Solace Farms

During one of the harder times in my life I found Brenda’s websiteand reached out to her. To say the least it has been one of the bestdecisions I have made. Being an extrovert I never quite understoodwhat it meant to romantically involved with an introvert. Brenda doesan incredible job listening, giving in the moment feedback, and helpedme understand the how an introvert functions. She helped explain to methat I am introspective extrovert, and this gave something to identifywith and allowed me t…

Evan H.

THANK YOU….. you just summed up my swirling thoughts into something i can read with out everything else in my head meshing with it. I finally feel like i can explain what happens within without getting distracted. I’m an Introvert with ADD and it makes it so hard to explain quite what im feeling sometimes. — M.G. on space2live

M.G.

Because of your blog, I know that it is possible for me to have the love that I want one day and that I don’t have to be alone. — Indepthwoman on space2live

Indepthwoman

That courage and dedication you so generously share with the world, has inspired me to push myself a little harder, persevere at each task a little longer, dig a little bit deeper to where the answers just “feel” right to both my humanity AND my spirit. Your insights have reinforced my direction and given me additional tools that help me clear my path. I’m wired into my creativity as never before and the new music is pouring out of me faster than I can record and produce it; this is the Un…

Gary

This is me. This is me from the day I was born. For so long I felt misunderstood and rejected, even by the people closest to me, because they could never understand my need for solitude, and I had no idea how to explain it to them. Even now that I know more about Introversion and have a more informed understanding of my hard-wired need for solitude, it’s still very difficult sometimes to help my loved ones understand this profound craving for time and space all to myself. This is one of the best…

Sharon

I think I want to print out your articles and hand them out as a sort of relationship waiver form. “You want to be my friend?….You are interesting in going out? Here read this first. Sign here to acknowledge that you have read and understand the enclosed material. Thank you.” Seriously. I think it would work. — Guerin Moorman

Guerin Moorman

I met Brenda and took the MBTI… I had a fairly good understanding of these types before the meeting but was impressed by the depth of knowledge that Brenda shared with me. She clearly has a passion for this work and a gift in imparting the information. There have been doors opened for me because of our talks… — Alan Hintermeister

Going Deep Makes Us Happier

Decades of research stemming from Csikszentmihalyi’s original ESM (experience sampling method) experiments validate that the act of going deep orders the consciousness in a way that makes life worthwhile.

Some of you may recognize the name Csikszentmihalyi from my posts on the flow state. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the Hungarian/American psychologist known as the father of flow. Flow is that delicious state we reach when we encounter the perfect mix of talent and challenge. In flow we lose track of time. Our inner critic quiets. Effort becomes effortless.

In his book, “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World”, author Cal Newport defines deep work as: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.

Extra bonus: deep work makes us more productive too!

Newport claims the skill involved in doing deep work is becoming more and more rare. Perhaps introverts have an advantage here? Most people work in environments that promote distractions and interruptions, i.e. open office plans, constant email responding and sporadic meetings. All of these inhibit deep concentration.

Deep work and flow go hand in hand. Deep work is activities performed in distraction-free concentration. Flow is the state we reach while doing such activities.

Does what we concentrate on matter?

Science writer Winifred Gallagher says it matters what we think about during deep concentration. Five years of research results convinced Gallagher that where we place our attention is more important than our circumstances when it comes to happiness. Our brains construct a worldview based on what we pay attention to. Interestingly, Gallagher started her research after she was diagnosed with cancer. She chose not to focus on the cancer and instead lasered in on the small niceties of life, like a martini at the end of the day. By doing this she was able to enjoy life while she went through the trials of cancer treatment. Csikszentmihalyi says it is the deep concentration itself that keeps us satisfied, with little concern regarding the subject of our focus.

A bonus of deliberate attention is if we spend enough time doing deeply focused work we consider meaningful, there is little time to think about negative and unpleasant things that naturally invade our brain when we are not highly engaged.

Which makes us happier, work or leisure?

If you answered leisure to the above question, you are not alone. Most people assume free, unstructured time is more pleasant than work time. The answer, according to Csikszentmihalyi’s experiments, is work. It turns out jobs are easier to enjoy than free time because they have built-in feedback, challenges and goals. All of which make it easier to concentrate and get lost in our subject, which stimulates the flow state. The more flow states we have throughout our week, the more satisfied we feel. How many times do you enter flow while working? Could you make your career more conducive to deep concentration?

Free-time can also make us happy but it may take more effort to shape it into something that we find enjoyable. The unstructured nature of leisure makes our brains work to form it into something we recognize as pleasant and leaves us open to distracting negative thoughts.

I conceptually understand the point about challenging work creating satisfaction but personally, I am often in my most content state of mind while driving down the highway with music on. I believe I am a black belt focuser on sweet and inspiring subjects versus negative gnawing ones (at least during the day while the sun is up and the music is on — nighttime alone in bed, different story), which may explain the pleasure I get out of this unstructured activity.

An important note Newport makes in “Deep Work” is that to be most productive we need concentration time mixed with leisure time. It turns out we need to rest our concentration capabilities (they are finite like willpower) to make full use of them.

How do we do deep work when we are surrounded by people?

One of my favorite psychology gurus, Carl Jung, built a stone house in the woods of Bollingen, Switzerland away from the bustling life of his practice in Zurich. Frequently, Jung would retreat to Bollingen to write and think. He spent time walking in the woods and meditating. Jung went to Bollingen alone so he could work without interruptions. This all sounds like an introvert’s heaven and the perfect place to do deep work.

Carl Jung

I am not sure how often Jung went to Bollingen but he also spent a good portion of his time in Zurich taking care of patients and his family. He worked late nights. He participated in Zurich’s active social scene. He met frequently with others in coffee houses and spent a lot of time giving and attending lectures in the city. My point is it is possible to be bogged down with a bustling busy life and incorporate uninterrupted quiet time into our schedules. I know we don’t all have a home in the woods to retreat to but we can go to a library, hotel, park, friend’s cabin or corner of our basement to find uninterrupted work space. Cal Newport calls this the Bimodal Philosophy of Deep Work scheduling.

While working on my book over the last three months, I’ve embraced this philosophy. I write during the day in my corner home office. As soon as the kids come home or it is time to meet with a companion or client, I switch gears and go into interaction mode. There are many days when my social life (both professional and personal) interject into my deep work time, but I just let it happen. No resistance. I plan for another day to make it up. Sometimes that means getting up very early or staying up very late. I focus on the feeling of accomplishment at the end of each day and the subject matter that intrigues me so much. The fact that I am challenged by the task, have deadlines and receive feedback, also makes it easier to create opportunities to do this meaningful and flow generating work. Ok, I also know this crazy full schedule is only for a short time. The manuscript is due by the end of April! 🙂 Here’s a sneak peek at the title: The Quiet Rise of Introverts: 8 Practices for Living and Loving in a Noisy World.

What deep work organizes your consciousness? Are you most satisfied at work or at leisure?

7 Comments

I read ‘Flow’ when it first came out. Fascinating, and I have always found that flow when I work. It is a beautiful, astounding thing, really, to be immersed, instantly, into another world. And there I am happy. Pretty much always.

I’m also happy in the outer world, walking my pups as an example. To see the skies and trees, the plants, the buds now, the rains when it rains, the soaking grass we walk on. To see the infinite varieties of people.

I’ve come to realize how happiness is simply a practice, like anything else. Every moment, we can practice choosing our thoughts. Choosing thoughts that lift us up. Make us feel better, lighter, more beautiful. Some times we fail at our choices! … and with time, the state of happiness is more and more ‘normal.’

I love to create. I love to learn. I love to laugh. Leisure time? To do ‘nothing’? lol … then are the times to read, to write, to communicate with someone, share ideas, learn new things.

Some of us seem to find that flow more easily than others. I don’t know why.

For some reason, at the moment, another title comes to mind that I read around that same time that I read Flow — ‘Learned Optimism,’ by Seligman, I believe. Optimism is a practice, too, though some personality types seems to lean that way more naturally.

Your idea of leisure time is just like mine.:) I’m going to look up “Learned Optimism”. I think I practice it already, whether it was an innate skill or something ‘learned’ I don’t know. My dad has always been quite optimistic, but my mom was not. Thank you as always for additional insight.

my dad was an optimist, too, very outgoing and gregarious, though he had a very private and quiet side to him, not often honored.

mom? negative. just not optimistic about much of anything. never was. that generation had it tough, you know. you got married, and you had kids. and you stayed home. not easy for a woman.

we heard through all of our lives from her, “I never should have had all you kids (7 of us), and I never should have married your father.” We heard this countless times. I understand where a lot of that came from. and i always knew she loved us. never a question there. she did wish she could have had a different life.

I have read a lot of material on flow but strangely I have not read “Flow”. Your endorsement makes it even more of a must read. I love the Kafka quote, beautiful and truthful imagery. I might have to buy the Kafka book too. 🙂 Thank you David!

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“Your depth of understanding and talent at sharing it amaze me. Speechless…and for your sharing of it… Thank you… deeply. *sigh, it’s like coming back into my body through acceptance… Sherrie on space2live”